Description: The original iPod changed the way you listen to music by putting thousands of songs in your pocket. Now iPod photo changes the way you see your music, with a crisp color screen. Browse your playlists via vivid menus, thumb through album and audiobook cover art on the go, even play games and view your calendars in color. Of course, iPod photo also lets you carry memories along with your music. Upload photos from your Mac or PC and view them in color, anywhere, complete with built-in backlighting.iPod photo features the touch-sensitive Apple Click Wheel for navigating your music and photos in 65,536 colors. Spin the wheel to Music and scroll effortlessly through dozens of playlists, hundreds of albums or thousand of songs. iPod photo displays 25 full-color thumbnails at a time. And you can scroll through them the same way you scroll through song titles. You can store up to 15,000 songs!
Description: Like its famous siblings, iPod Photo features the touch-sensitive Apple Click Wheel that?s the envy of the industry. You?ll use it to navigate iPod Photo?s menu. Now in living color, it's easier to read than ever. That?s thanks in part to the clarity of the display - it offers 220x176-pixel resolution - and in part to the Myriad typeface. Spin the wheel to Music, and you can scroll effortlessly through dozens of playlists, hundreds of albums or thousand of songs. Or highlight Photos. iPod Photo displays 25 full-color thumbnails at a time. And you can scroll through them the same way you scroll through song titles. Quickly. Just spin the wheel to see more. And when you see a photo you?d like displayed all by its lonesome, just click the center button and voila. No one will have to say ?cheese? as long as you have iPod Photo around. Whether you?re listening to tunes or checking out photos, you?re sure to be all smiles. Use the included AV cable to connect iPod Photo to a projector or TV. You can mesmerize friends and family with a glorious multimedia experience, offering them a breathtaking slideshow accompanied by the music you already have on your iPod Photo. Of course, you get to choose the songs, albums or playlists. Whether you?re on a transcontinental flight or an extra long hike, if you plan to listen to music for hours and hours, iPod Photo has you covered. Fully charged, it lets you enjoy up to 15 hours of continuous music; or up to 5 hours of continuous slideshows with music. Use the FireWire or USB 2.0 cables to quickly charge the batteries. Or use the iPod Photo Dock that comes with both 40GB and 60GB models.
Description: Time to mix things up. Meet iPod shuffle, the unpredictable iPod. What will it play next? Can it read your mind? Can it read your moods? Load it up. Put it on. See where it takes you. Choose from pocket-size 512MB or 1G models starting at under 100 and surprise yourself.
iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched in October 2001. Devices in the iPod range are primarily digital audio players, designed around a central click wheel — with the exception of the iPod shuffle, which uses buttons because of its small size. As of September 2006, the line-up consists of the video-capable fifth generation iPod, the smaller second generation iPod nano, and the display-less second generation iPod shuffle. The iPod line used to contain the iPod mini, until being discontinued for the introduction of the iPod nano. The full-sized model stores media on an internal hard drive, while the iPod nano and iPod shuffle use flash memory due to their smaller size. Like many digital music players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices.
Apple's iTunes software is used to transfer music to the devices. As a free jukebox application, iTunes stores an entire music library on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. It can also transfer photos, videos, games, and calendars to the models that support them. Apple focused its development on the iPod's unique user interface and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability. As of April 2007, the iPod had sold over 100 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling digital audio player series in history.
iPod came from Apple's digital hub strategy, when the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful", so Apple decided to develop its own. Apple's hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein, assembled a team of engineers to design it, including Tony Fadell, hardware engineer Michael Dhuey, and design engineer Jonathan Ive, with Stan Ng as the marketing manager. The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on October 23, 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1000 songs in your pocket."
Uncharacteristically, Apple did not develop iPod's software entirely in-house. Apple instead used PortalPlayer's reference platform which was based on 2 ARM cores. The platform had rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. PortalPlayer had previously been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones. Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to help design and implement the user interface, under the direct supervision of Steve Jobs. Once established, Apple continued to refine the software's look and feel. Starting with the iPod mini, the Chicago font was replaced with Espy Sans. Later iPods switched fonts again to Podium Sans — a font similar to Apple's corporate font Myriad. iPods with color displays then adopted some Mac OS X themes like Aqua progress bars, and brushed metal in the lock interface.
The name iPod was proposed by Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter, who (with others) was called by Apple to figure out how to introduce the new player to the public. After Chieco saw a prototype, he thought of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!", which refers to the white EVA Pods of the Discovery One spaceship. Apple had previously registered the name "iPod" for Internet kiosks, but never put it to use.